


No one could fall for you quite like me

by Izupie



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: But They're Absolute Dumbasses, Childhood Memories, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Little Shit, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reddie Week 2020, Richie Realising He Loves Eddie, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier is Bad at Feelings, They love each other so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26202445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izupie/pseuds/Izupie
Summary: “Hey, Eds, you wanna know a secret?”-----Memories are so personal because our own feelings shape the way we see the world, so the same events can be experienced differently by different people. Maybe that's the real magic about sharing memories with someone who was there for them too.-----Richie and Eddie fell for each other. It was undeniable. (Except maybe to themselves.) (And to each other.)
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 17
Collections: Reddie Week 2020





	1. Quarry / Kissing Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Reddie Week 2020 Let's Go!  
> I'd been really interested in participating in Reddie Week this year and a friend contacted me like LET'S COLLAB and I have never replied back with HECK YEA faster in my life. We bounced some galaxy brain ideas back and forth and came up with some Plans for the prompts for this week.  
> She's going to do some art for these when she gets the chance, which I'll link here too, because unfortunately life gets in the way and we're both super busy - I'm midway through moving house aha - and I've only completed the first two days on time *finger guns* so days 1 and 2 will be posted on their days. And the rest will be... coming soon???
> 
> I'd been in a creative slump since lockdown and pandemic and all that and this really really ignited my imagination again. I hope you enjoy the updates as they come! Really loved writing these, and for the great collab of ideas!

They’d always thought about jumping. Of course they had. They were a group of kids with a sense of adventure (well, most of them anyway) and what kid hadn’t dreamt of flying? And wasn’t falling just a little bit like flying? It wouldn’t have taken much to jump – just a step. And there was water at the bottom of the cliff, so it wasn’t like anyone was going to die or anything. (Though according to the dire warnings of both Eddie and Stan you’d have thought they were going to leap into the flames of hell itself or something.)

Maybe it hadn’t really been about being brave, but maybe it was. Either way, none of them ever did it. They talked about it, they joked about it, they leaned over the edge as far as they could without falling, but all of their feet stayed firmly planted on the ground. Until Bev took that flying leap off the cliff like she’d born with wings and was about to take off instead of plummet down.

They’d all jumped then. Turns out it hadn’t been so scary after all – exhilarating maybe, scary in that way that makes you feel alive, but not the kind of bone-deep-skin-crawling kind of scary they faced not long after that.

And it really did feel a lot like flying.

(Or at least, as much as someone can imagine what flying would feel like.)

It became something they did so often – the seven of them together – that maybe that’s why it was such a surprise that it was the place where it all began.

_“Where what began?”_

_“Hey, Eds, you wanna know a secret?”_

\-------------------------

“Eddie!” Richie flipped his wrist up to his face and squinted at his skin. He didn’t even wear a watch. “You’re late!”

“Yeah, do you know how hard it is to ride a bike with a cast, asshole?” Eddie climbed off his bike carefully and lowered it to the dusty ground with the others. The group greeted him warmly as he made his way over. “And my mom tried to keep me from coming,” he added with a note of bitterness.

Mike tapped his shoulder. “Well we’re just glad you made it.”

“Thanks Mike.”

The others echoed the sentiment, but there was something cold that coiled in Richie’s gut whenever he thought of Eddie being kept a prisoner in his own home. “Fuck that,” he said more loudly than he’d intended. He had to unclench his fists and plaster on a grin. “If she ever tries to lock you up, set off a smoke signal from your room or some shit, then these losers will bust you out while I keep your mom _distracted.”_ Richie winked and made a thrusting motion.

“Ugh you’re so fucking disgusting.”

“He’s not actually in prison, R-Richie.”

“And how could I even set off a smoke signal from my room?”

“Actually, smoke signals are pretty interesting. With the right kind of signals, you can almost send simple messages like Morse code,” Ben chimed in brightly.

Stan shrugged. “I think the universal code for smoke coming from a bedroom would be ‘help, I’m on fire’ though.”

The conversation bounced amongst them effortlessly. Richie specifically heard Eddie loudly proclaim how bad it was for lungs to inhale the smoke from the plastics they use in household furniture and how everything was made with flammable chemicals these days, so the smoke would kill you faster than the fire would.

“That’s fine though Eds, you’re so short you’d be below the fumes,” Richie interrupted, feeling a spike of delight run through his chest when Eddie didn’t even pause in his rapid ranting – he just flipped him off with his good hand.

Richie didn’t realise he was smiling until he caught sight of Bev looking at him with her trademark lopsided smile pulling up one corner of her pink lips. He punched her lightly in the arm. “You gonna miss this?”

“I am, actually.” She sighed. “I wish I could stay.”

“Nah, you don’t. You’re like me – can’t wait to see the back of this town.”

“In a way. But it means leaving you all” —Bev ruffled his hair— “and that makes me… miss you all already.”

“That’s why I was so bothered about Eddie showing up,” Richie explained, not bothering to fix his messy hair but pushing his glasses back up his nose. “This is our last time all together at the quarry.”

_The only reason,_ he thought, with an image of the kissing bridge flashing behind his eyes. _(R+E R+E R+E)._

Bev hummed and looked over at the others, her smile never wavering. “One last jump,” she said.

Richie wasn’t sure if it was because he’d been waking up from nightmares recently with tears tracking hot and wet down his cheeks, the pillow beneath his head damp where he’d been lying, but the urge to cry when he was feeling emotional was really getting inconvenient and hard to hide. He clapped his hands with a force that left his palms prickling, but it had the wanted effect of making the rest of the group snap their attention to him. With no words Richie grabbed his button-down shirt and flung it off his back in one motion. Somebody whistled. The bright pink material fluttered to the ground with no regard, followed swiftly by Richie’s t-shirt and pants until he stood in nothing but his underwear.

“Alright fellas – and lady – let’s get to jumping! The Losers Club’s final leap into danger,” Richie said in a deep voice. (Even he wasn’t sure what accent he’d been aiming for there.) (Maybe Australian?)

There were giggles and whoops, but Richie’s attention snapped to the person who always got it first – and Eddie was frowning at his feet.

“Eds?” he prompted, the voice that had been so booming before now embarrassingly small. He cleared his throat. “Wowzer, what’s made you so shy? We’ve already seen you in your underwear before, your scrawny body won’t shock us.”

“Beep b-buh-beep, Richie,” Bill said firmly.

Stan threw him a look.

“Fuck you,” Eddie snapped back immediately, but it was with no real bite. “I, uh, I can’t get my new cast wet.” He lifted the injured arm into the air for emphasis.

The new cast was plain white, with no words or child-murdering-demon-clown sick marking the surface, and it made Richie immediately want to doodle on it.

“What?” Richie eventually said, staring at the cast in offence of its plainness and as if it was personally keeping Eddie from hanging out with them in the quarry. It was supposed to be their last jump together! “You’re gonna let that stop you?”

“Well yeah, actually, I don’t know how I didn’t already get it infected from what happened with… at… you know. And the doctor said I can’t get this one wet,” Eddie said rapidly. “I could have got gangrene with all that shit from the sewers – they could have had to amputate my arm off – or it could have spread and poisoned my blood. You know what happens then? You just die slowly and painfully.”

“So, you’re just scared?” Richie pressed, wondering distantly if he was going too far, but unable to stop his mouth. Thoughts of the kissing bridge _(R+E)_ and his sadness at Bev leaving and the unfairness of Eddie not being able to jump with them (because he _wanted_ Eddie there) and voices attacking him in a sunny arcade, telling him what he already knows, drifted through his head. The words LOSER and LOVER flashed behind his eyes. _(R+E R+E R+E)._

“I’m not scared,” Eddie said. “I’m being practical. I’m being- fucking- responsible- like someone who knows how bodies work and wants to actually keep their arm.”

Richie nodded, emotions running through him faster than he could process them. “Sure, okay, because all I’m hearing is that you just don’t wanna jump into the quarry because you’re afraid.” He folded his arms.

“Richie,” Bill warned in a low voice.

“And that’s fine! You can stay here and look after the bikes. Someone’s gotta keep Silver company,” Richie went on, trying desperately to push his own buzzing thoughts away, but knowing that he was being an incredible asshole instead.

But he just… he wanted… did he know what he wanted?

Was he mad? Who was he mad at? Himself? Derry?

But before he could even think anything else – before his racing thoughts had him opening his trashmouth again – Eddie took off past him. Eddie ran like someone who had never needed an inhaler his whole life. Like someone who could outrun everything the town stood for. His trainers pounded heavily against the dirt and Richie was so shocked he nearly didn’t turn around fast enough to see him launch, fully clothed, off the edge of the cliff. He pushed off hard enough that Richie realised dimly that although Bev had looked like she’d been about to fly when she’d done it that first time, Eddie just looked like a boy, launching himself into the unknown, with no fear to hold him back. Nothing to hold him back.

“Fuck you!” yelled Eddie’s voice, barely legible as it fell like a stone, following him down into the quarry, echoing and bouncing up to them.

“Oh m-my god!” Bill laughed.

“Eddie! What the fuck!” Richie managed to croak out as he finally ran after him and skidded to a stop at the top of the cliff.

A splash. Water rippling.

“His mom’s going to kill him if his doctor doesn’t,” Stan said with a shake of his head, his mouth curled in amusement.

“I can’t believe he just did that,” Ben chuckled.

Mike cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Eddie, are you okay?”

A head of brown hair surfaced, and a cast waved high above the water. Though it was too late, Richie thought distantly, the whole thing had already been fully submerged.

Bev flicked his ear and Richie hissed with pain.

“Ow!” He put his hands up defensively. “What was that for?”

Bev sighed. “You two…” was all she said before she shed her clothes and followed Eddie down.

Another splash.

The others were close behind.

Splash. Splash. Splash. Splash.

“Told you I wasn’t scared!” Eddie shouted up to Richie, voice dancing with amusement.

He couldn’t believe he’d really jumped.

Richie had swung a baseball bat to save Bill _(‘welcome to the Losers Club, asshole!’)_ and threw rocks _(‘rock war!’)_ but it was Eddie who was the brave one really – because he felt the fear so acutely and still did it anyway. Maybe he complained the loudest, but when it came down to it, it was Eddie that jumped off cliffs _(‘fuck you!’)_ and kicked his own fear in the face _(‘I’m gonna kill you!’)._

Richie felt the full force of his affection hit him in the chest. It pulsed in his ears and rooted him to the spot.

_Told you I wasn’t scared!_

_(R+E R+E R+E)_

Oh, but Richie is.

“Holy shit,” he whispered.


	2. Confession / First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How were kids supposed to know what a real date was like anyway?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2!   
> This is the last one that'll be posted on time ahaha~ sorry;;  
> I'm so excited to write this whole series. My friend has given me some amazing ideas to work with!
> 
> Richie pining level 120%

How were kids supposed to know what a real date was like anyway? Dates in the movies were all slow music, candlelight dinners and kisses at the door (unless they were interrupted by some kind of flesh-eating monster – it depended on the genre, Richie supposed). But mostly they were just one person spending time alone with another person that they really wanted to spend time alone with. So it seemed perfectly reasonable that a lovesick, pining, confused teenager would be a little unclear about the whole thing.

_“But we never went on a date when we were kids… did we?”_

_“Y’know, I spent so many nights staring at my bedroom ceiling wondering the same thing.”_

\-----------

Richie didn’t want to admit it (especially not to Eddie, who he knew had an ‘I told you so’ just waiting for the occasion) but he didn’t enjoy smoking cigarettes. It tasted like he’d licked an ashtray for the rest of the day. He couldn’t understand what Bev found enjoyable about it, because the appeal to him came from having something to do with his hands and that they reminded him of her. The smoky smell always clung to her clothes and hair, so he’d get a great big lungful of it whenever she used to pull him in for a hug. Back when she was around to hug him. When she’d started sharing her cigarettes with him, he felt like she was inviting him into their little world for two – like a special club within their special club. Which was probably why it hurt so much that she hadn’t been in touch since she’d left a few months ago, and why he’d eventually turned smoking into a solo habit.

Sometimes he didn’t even smoke them – just lit the end and let it burn. His lighter was a gift from Bev, just before she left, and he fiddled with it in his pocket before he pulled it out and flicked it on. The cigarette in his other hand sizzled as the paper caught, and he watched the end glow faintly as a thin, grey swirl of acrid smelling smoke curled into the air.

Richie leaned back against the bricks of the familiar alley and held the cigarette in the air, rolling it between his fingers as it burned.

The crates and boxes had long since been moved, but when he looked over he could almost still see Ben, bleeding from a knife wound on his stomach, and the shrill voice of himself yelling at Eddie to ‘get in there’. He chuckled at the memory of it all, though he doubted Ben would feel the same way (but that only made him laugh harder at the irony). Eddie had been the only one who’d known what they needed to do to help him, and the only one who was calm enough to do it.

‘Get my bifocals,’ he’d said, ‘they’re in my second fanny pack’, he’d said.

Richie smiled. God, why was he so pathetic that his heart felt like it was going to rip out of his chest when he thought about Eddie’s dumb fucking second fanny pack and the highly strung way that he demanded his bifocals? It just made no sense. He just wished that Bev would actually call him back so he could at least have the option to confess to his feelings with someone like – _‘hey, Bev, so the thing is, I think I’m in love with Eddie? How’s your new school?’_ … But if even she rang back, he knew deep down that he wouldn’t tell her. It was best if he _never_ confessed.

But if he _did_ tell someone about it, he could almost imagine that it would be her.

Richie tilted his head up to the sky and pulled his glasses up slightly so that he could rub his eyelids underneath them. He sighed deeply.

When he brought his face back down a flash of baby blue and brown caught his attention at the end of the alley.

_Eddie?_

Richie flicked the unsmoked cigarette to the ground and squashed it under his foot as he took off towards the entrance to the alley. He was so sure he’d just seen him walk past.

“Hey, Eddie!”

The boy in a light blue polo shirt and sandy coloured shorts stopped dead and whipped his head around at the call of his name. Richie felt a smile light up his face as delight jolted through him.

“Richie?” Eddie blinked in surprise. The afternoon Derry sunshine lit his features in a bright golden glow, highlighting his freckles and his large dark eyes.

Oh, he was so pretty.

“The one and only!” Richie replied breezily as he tipped an imaginary hat. (He was eternally grateful to all the powers of the known universe that his voice didn’t crack.)

“What are you doing here?” Eddie’s nose crinkled. “Wait… have you been smoking?”

“Nah, well, sort of. Anyway, what are _you_ doing here?”

For a moment it looked as if Eddie was going to linger on the smoking, but then his expression became less pinched and he looked a little sheepish. “My mom sent me out on an errand.”

Richie tilted his head and looked ahead to where he was probably headed. “To the pharmacy?” he guessed.

“Yeah,” Eddie said with a clipped voice – as if to say _what of it._

“Cool. I’ll come with.”

Eddie’s eyebrows hiked to his hairline and then slowly drew together. “Really?”

“Sure. Come on. Me and you, alone at the pharmacy, sounds like a-” _Oh fuck! Don’t say date! Don’t say date!_ “-an adventure.”

“O-Oh yeah. Yeah. An adventure yeah.”

They fell into step beside each other.

If Richie had felt grateful for the one second where his brain and mouth had been cooperating for once in his life, he felt that slip away as he continued, loudly, “This is the diary of Richie and Eddie setting off to the wilderness of the pharmacy, facing dangers unknown.” He brought a hand up to his mouth and made a walkie-talkie sound. “The two adventurers are on their own now, since Scott the cameraman has already been eaten by a tiger and Jason the director got carried away by a horny chimp for a good time, if y’know what I’m saying…”

Eddie snorted a laugh and pulled Richie’s hand to his own mouth, as if it were the walkie-talkie that he’d pretended it to be. Richie tried not to think of how close it almost – kind of, _nearly_ – was to holding hands.

“Eddie’s got the best survival instincts,” Eddie said with a sideways glance at him, “but Richie has a lighter. Best to keep him around.” He narrowed his eyes, but he was smiling. “For now.”

Richie pulled his hand away with a snort and made a pained sound. “The treachery! Looks like the actual snakes aren’t the only snakes in the jungle!”

They laughed together and Richie was sad to suddenly notice that they’d already made it to Derry’s only pharmacy. Was the walk from that alleyway always that short?

Eddie was about to go inside when he stopped, obviously noticing Richie hanging back.

“I, uh, I’ll wait out here. This place gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Eddie folded his arms, clearly not buying his bullshit. “I didn’t know you were still banned from the pharmacy.”

“I’m not!” Richie immediately lied.

“You know you should just apologise, right? You’d be the one in trouble if you ever needed some medicine, but then you couldn’t get any because of the lifetime ban you got when you were twelve.”

Richie kicked a toe of his extremely beaten up old trainers onto the sidewalk. “It’s the principle, Eds. It’s not like I _meant_ to knock that whole shelf over.”

Eddie’s eyebrows lifted in a feigned surprise that said he still wasn’t buying any of it.

Richie sniggered and let a grin pull up one corner of his mouth. “I’m not going to say that it didn’t sound pretty fucking epic crashing to the ground though,” he said, with laughter dancing in his voice. He mimed the shelf falling over wildly with his arms and added an explosion sound as his arms slammed together.

Eddie shook his head, but he was laughing too.

“It’s not even like I ever _stole_ anything from here. That sounds like an offence to be banned over to me.”

“Ben needed it! He could have bled out from a wound like that” – (Richie doubted it) – “or it could have got infected. He was dirty and wet and if I hadn’t cleaned it up all sorts of bacteria could have gotten in his open wound. Probably would have got sepsis and died.”

Richie barked a laugh at Eddie’s rapid speech. “Didn’t you literally tell all this to Ben while you were bandaging him up?”

“Of course,” Eddie huffed, “it was true.”

“Oh man, he looked like he was going to throw up. He was lucky Doctor K was there.” Richie clicked his fingers and winked.

Eddie blinked at him in surprise and he realised that even his finger-guns and wink hadn’t offset the amount of affection thick in his voice.

“Well, it doesn’t matter anyway,” Richie barrelled on, warmth creeping up his neck, “‘cause… I know you’d go in there for me.”

“Would I?”

Richie threw an arm across Eddie’s shoulders and leaned on him heavily. (Is this flirting?) _(This isn’t a fucking date stop thinking this is flirting!)_ “You wouldn’t leave your best friend in the whole wide world to die, would you?”

He heard the phantom sounds of his own voice yelling ‘Eddie, look at me!’ as if making Eddie know that he wasn’t going to leave him – not ever – was the most important thing he’d ever done.

“No,” Eddie agreed quietly, bringing Richie back to the present, “I wouldn’t.”

He didn’t move to push him away and Richie suddenly became very aware of exactly where they were and that there were other people around. He withdrew his arm and shoved both his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

A shadow of hurt flashed across Eddie’s expression so briefly that Richie wondered if he had just made it up in his hope that Eddie enjoyed his company as much as he enjoyed his. He turned and went to step into the pharmacy again. Then stopped.

“So, uh, earlier... when you said about this being like... an adventure?”

“Yeah?”

“I thought you were going to say... never mind.” Eddie shook his head. “You don’t have to wait for me,” he added quickly.

“In the field we had a code of honour,” Richie replied, with a bad accent, “you watch my back, I watch yours.”

“That didn’t even sound like Rambo, and it makes no sense.” Eddie smiled.

“ _You_ don’t make any sense!” Richie yelled after him with a chuckle as he disappeared inside.

Of fucking course he was going to wait for him.

Maybe he’d go get some ice cream for them both for when he came back out. Maybe he’d even walk Eddie home.

Isn’t that what people did when they were on a date?


End file.
